Welcome to the online archives of the Milestones of the Millennium series from NPR's Performance Today®. Each week we add another online version from the radio series to this Web site, accumulating a rich resource of musical essays and commentaries. We hope you find these archives entertaining and enlightening.

We’ve divided the features into seven categories. "Great Musicians" includes features on great composers and performers. "Forms & Style"--from the string quartet to the symphony, from chant to jazz, we cover music’s various manifestations. "Instruments & Inventions" considers the tools and techniques that have carried music to new levels. "Historic Events"--from great wars to pivotal performances, the history of music reflects the history of mankind. "Intellectual Movements" explores great philosophical movements as reflected in the music of the era. "Intersections with other Arts" reviews the synthesis of music with the visual and other performing arts. And "Capitals of Classical Music" focuses on the places where great music was made.

· The premiere essay of the series, which aired January 1, 1999, was "Johann Sebastian Bach: The Brook and the Wellspring," a commentary by Jan Swafford. Using the metaphor suggested by the composer's name ("Bach" is German for "brook"), Swafford explains how Bach emerged from a family of musicians to become perhaps the greatest master and innovator of all time.

Listen to the commentary of acclaimed writer Jan Swafford as he takes us through acolorful journey in harmony with a discussion on the music of French Impresisonist Claude Debussy. Included is the sea-symphony La Mer and the symbolist tone poem Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.

Get inside the head of one of music's most intense minds: The Orion String Quartet delves into the inspiration and techniques Beethoven utilized in his output of the sixteen string quartets, pieces undoubtedly the hallmark collection of the chamber music repertoire.

Be a Renaissance person and learn about the Italian art of polyphony with Harvard professor Tom Kelly and the choral works of Palestrina. Antiphony abounds in these works set against the backdrop of the Counter-Reformation and the painting of the Vatican's famed Sistine Chapel.

· Franz Joseph Haydn. Our March 3, 1999 installment is a commentary on the unassuming genius of this great composer, by PT commentator Jan Swafford.

· Mozart's Last Year: He was prolific and in his prime. Mozart scholar Neal Zaslaw provides insights on the tragic final chapter of the great composer's life.

· Our April 16, 1999 feature focused on Igor Stravinsky, with interviews with composer Philip Glass and conductor and Stravinsky protégé, Robert Craft.

· On May 19, 1999 we aired Jan Swafford's commentary on Claudio Monteverdi, who bestrode the Rennaissance and Baroque eras and created opera as we know it.

· PT helps you overcome "Wagner-phobia" with our recent edition on controversial composer Richard Wagner.

· PT commentator Jan Swafford, author of a recent biography of Johannes Brahms, describes the great 19th-century composer.

· Frédéric Chopin established his reputation as a performer giving only 30 public concerts in his lifetime, yet his works have been performed by pianists ever since.

· Our December 8, 1999 feature highlighted Franz Schubert, perhaps the least understood of the great composers.

· "Chant: Hymns and Sequences," aired on NPR's Performance Today on Wednesday, January 20th, and explored Gregorian chant. The Rev. J.F. Weber, an active Catholic priest and expert on liturgical music, discussed the music of the Latin rite of the Roman Catholic Church, which formed the bedrock of Western classical music.

· Composer and writer David Baker explained the influence of jazz on classical music on February 10th. He and Martin discuss works by Darius Milhaud, Igor Stravinksky, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein as they trace the gradual infusion of jazz elements into classical composition.

· East meets West: Composer Lou Harrison joins Lisa Simeone to discuss Eastern influences on Western classical music. Mozart, Debussey and Philip Glass are among other featured composers.

· The Symphony: We trace this most flexible of forms from its roots in the opera overture to an infinite variety of musical expression. Author Michael Steinberg guides our discussion of great symphonic composers and works.

· Experience our excursion to the great outdoors as we feature Pastoral Music. Landscape architect John Dixon Hunt helps us survey the idyllic musical scenery of composers like Beethoven, Handel, Vivaldi and others.

· An in-depth look at Melody features composers, musicians and music fans discussing, playing and singing their favorite melodies. Composer Robert Kapilow deconstructs "The Swan" from "Carnival of the Animals" by Camille Saint-Saens

· Our look at the The Concerto sets the stage for this great musical drama pitting the soloist agains the entire orchestra. Learn how Beethoven begot new beginnings with his Piano Concerto No. 4.

· In this installment learn how composers have translated the art of Storytelling into music.

· Explore the world of musical Improvisation with Harvard professor and master improviser, Robert Levin.

· "The Evolution of the Piano" aired on January 13th. Esteemed pianist and author Charles Rosen joined Martin Goldsmith in the Hall of Musical Instruments at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History to trace the development of keyboard instruments. He demonstrates the sounds of five successive pianos, from the type Mozart might have used in 1789 to an 1832 Graf Piano that has a percussion pedal to a modern Steinway.

· Percussion and its evolving role in music was explored with the virtuoso percussion ensemble, Nexus on April 28, 1999. We take a rhythmic journey from Africa and the East to the orchestras of the West.

· In our focus on the history of music recording, producer Dennis Rooney joins host Lisa Simeone to demonstrate how recording technology has both preserved and affected musical performance.

· Our May 12, 1999 installment focuses on the evolution of the role of the conductor, as PT commentator and record critic Ted Libbey joins host Lisa Simeone to hear comparisons of various conducting techniques, past and present.

· Clarinetist Richard Stoltzman discusses and plays the clarinet for host Lisa Simeone. A relative newcomer to the orchestra, the clarinet is a versatile, chameleon-like instrument, which inspired Brahms to come out of retirement.

· "The Great War," which aired on NPR's Performance Today on Wednesday, January 27th, examines classical and popular music before, during and after World War I, an era that profoundly altered the course of Western civilization and culture. Commentator Linda Kobler connects historical events to the revolution in music that occurred at the same time.

· Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with commentary by Thomas Kelly, aired on NPR's Performance Today on Wednesday, February 3rd. Kelly, a member of the music faculty at Harvard University, uses research for his forthcoming book First Nights to take us back to the day in 1824 when Beethoven stood on stage, deaf, preparing for the premiere of the work that would become his greatest masterpiece.

· Mozart's Last Year: He was prolific and in his prime. Mozart scholar Neal Zaslaw provides insights on the tragic final chapter of the great composer's life.

· On March 31st, we attended Handel's Messiah, the Premiere. Harvard University Professor and early music specialist Thomas Kelly takes us back in time to Dublin, Ireland for the 1742 premiere.

· Hector Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique: Psychedelic music before its time, this masterpiece also ushered in the Romantic era. We hear Michael Tilson Thomas of the San Francisco Symphony both comment and conduct.

· Learn how Aaron Copland captured youthful aspiration in an ideal America with "Appalachian Spring."

· We examined Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" with NBC's weatherman Willard Scott and Harvard professor Thomas Kelly.

· The scandalous premiere of Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" shocked its audience and jump-started modern music. Harvard scholar Thomas Kelly tells us why.

· Johann Sebastian Bach's "Brandenburg" Concertos serve as a benchmark of Baroque music and display the lighter side of Bach's genius.

· Through the centuries composers have translated The Christmas Story into music. Listen as Lisa Simeone presents a musical portrait of the birth of Jesus Christ.

· Masters of the Renaissance, presented by early music scholar David Fallows, aired on NPR's Performance Today on Wednesday, February 17th. It explores the pivotal age in which music became a formal art, with sophisticated techniques and increasingly complex structures.

· Nationalism in Music. Performance Today host Martin Goldsmith is joined by Frederick Starr, author and former president of Oberlin College. Together they embark on a musical journey through the sights, smells, soil and texture of different countries as depicted by nationalist composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

· We examine the music of the Age of Enlightenment in our June 2, 1999 edition, as author and Mozart scholar Nicholas Tills joins Lisa Simeone and discusses the "democratic principles" of the string quartet.

· "Great Film Music" aired on NPR's Performance Today on Wednesday, January 6th. This installment showed the development of original music for motion pictures, from the silent era to the present, with film music scholar and critic Royal S. Brown as the commentator.

· "Dance and Music"--Time magazine dance and music critic Terry Teachout leads as we waltz through the history of dance, music's partner.

· William Shakespeare's influence on music was the focus of our April 22, 1999 installment, with former Shakespearean actor and PT host Martin Goldsmith.

· In this installment learn how composers have translated the art of Storytelling into music.

· We take a tour of the flourishing of musical innovation in Russia Before the Revolution--guided by Harlow Robinson, chairman of the Modern Languages Department at Northeastern University and author of a biography of Sergei Prokofiev.

· Learn how the world's great cathedrals shaped music through the ages with Martin Goldsmith and Douglas Major.